Shares in Ørsted hit an all-time low on Monday after the Trump administration ordered Europe’s largest wind power company to stop work on a near complete windfarm.
Ørsted’s shares plunged 17%, after it was forced to stop construction on its $1.5bn (£741m) Revolution Wind project off the coast of Rhode Island.
The order to down tools came despite the fact that the project is 80% complete, with 45 out of 65 wind turbines installed.
The US government issued its stop-work order late on Friday, citing a need to “address concerns related to the protection of national security interests”, although it did not provide any further detail.
Ørsted, which is 50.1% owned by the Danish state, has been hit hard by Donald Trump’s hardline stance on offshore wind projects.
The company, which is behind some of the world’s biggest offshore windfarms, typically covers its costs by selling a stake in each project once work is under way. However, the president’s cynicism has hurt the values of its US projects.
The stop-work order comes at a critical time for the Danish business as it seeks to raise money for its new projects. Earlier this month, it said it would seek to shore up its finances by selling new shares worth 60bn Danish kroner (£7bn) to existing investors.
Prior to the fall on Monday, Ørsted shares had already dropped by more than 30% in the year to date.
Pierre-Alexandre Ramondenc, an analyst at the research company AlphaValue, said the US government intervention could jeopardise the success of Ørsted’s fundraising plans.
“The news came as a major shock and amounts to nothing less than political hostage-taking by the US administration, given the project’s advanced stage,” he said.
Trump has a long-held dislike of offshore windfarms, which dates back at least 14 years to a dispute over North Sea wind turbines that were visible from one of his golf courses in Scotland.
He has claimed that windfarms should not be allowed because they generate “the worst form of energy, the most expensive form of energy” and also “kill the birds”. These claims have been refuted by experts.
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On his first day in office in January, Trump suspended new offshore wind power leases. He recently called wind and solar power “THE SCAM OF THE CENTURY!” in a social media post and vowed not to approve wind or “farmer destroying Solar” projects.
Revolution Wind, which was expected to be fully operational next year, is expected to be capable of powering more than 350,000 homes.
In April, the US government also halted the construction of another wind project led by Norway’s Equinor, although it lifted the stop-work order on the $5bn windfarm the following month.
In response to the stop-work order, Ørsted said it was “evaluating all options to resolve the matter expeditiously”, including through potential legal proceedings.
